Walmart detractors lost in court last week, paving the way for the Chico store to expand after more than a decade of delays.

But of course it won’t expand, at least not yet.

I realize I don’t have a vote in this fight and neither do most of you, but I’m tired of it. Walmart’s project shouldn’t be held up by court challenges that abuse a well-meaning environmental law.

Look, I don’t even like Walmart. I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve been to the Chico store in the past 20 years. If it expands and adds groceries, like it wants to do, I still won’t shop there. I’ll continue to shop at the very grocery stores that are likely bankrolling the court challenges.

But saying I don’t shop there so nobody else should is the ultimate in hypocrisy.

Imagine if a new daily newspaper wanted to come to town and the Enterprise-Record filed an environmental lawsuit trying to stop it. Imagine if a new brewery wanted to come to Chico and Sierra Nevada filed a lawsuit. Or if Cabela’s wanted to come and Sportsman’s Warehouse issued a legal challenge. Or if Macy’s wanted to come and every department store in town combined to fund a lawsuit.

First, I doubt any existing businesses would file such a challenge. They wouldn’t stand much chance of winning, and further they’d tick off most consumers because of their audacity.

Somehow, it’s different with Walmart, though.

The argument used to be that the retail giant was destroying small-town America or, more specifically, businesses on Main Street USA. Those Walmart critics had a good argument, for a while.

Walmart indeed put a lot of small retailers out of business, but it’s far from an unstoppable goliath. Amazon and online retailers could one day do to Walmart what Walmart did to so many others.

The legal challenge to Chico’s Walmart likely isn’t winnable. It just delays the inevitable, unless Walmart tires of the game and pulls out. Walmart has played the game in many other cities, though, often with the same Stockton-based attorney serving as the foil.

That attorney, Brett Jolley, assiduously avoids saying who pays for the legal challenges. He says he is funded by groups that mysteriously pop up whenever a super-sized Walmart is proposed in towns where large grocers already exists. These groups are given creative names to make it sound like there’s a populist, grass-roots effort behind it — names like Chico Advocates for a Responsible Economy, or Citizens for Ceres.

Last year I talked to Ceres Mayor Chris Vierra, whose city near Modesto battled the same delays before Walmart finally prevailed in court. He said Save Mart was behind the challenge in Ceres. The Wall Street Journal has reported that Safeway, Supervalu and other chains have funded the efforts elsewhere.

Vierra explained it well to me.

“For every year they can delay the large Walmart, it protects their current revenue. Say they have $900,000 to $1 million worth of revenue (annually). If they have to pay Mr. Jolley $125,000 a year to delay this in court, it’s worth it to them,” Vierra said.

The tool is usually, like in Chico, the California Environmental Quality Act. The way the tool is used is the reason so many politicians and others think CEQA should be rewritten, to eliminate frivolous challenges that have nothing to do with environmental protection.

In this case, a lawsuit filed against the city’s approval for the expansion said the city’s environmental impact report did not take “urban decay” into consideration.

Butte County Superior Court Judge Steven Benson last week rejected that argument, almost a year after the case was filed.

But it’s not over. Jolley’s clients can file an appeal and keep it going. It doesn’t matter how many people are tired of this ridiculous fight.

Editor David Little’s column appears each Sunday. Contact him at 896-7793 or dlittle@chicoer.com.